The Wichita Eagle January 21, 2003
Fort Riley can load rail cars 4 times faster than it did in 1991; Army's top train depot
By TIM POTTER
On a cold January morning at this prairie fort's sprawling railhead, chains clank, metal screeches and the air smells of diesel exhaust.
In the gray midmorning light, drivers wearing combat helmets ease Bradley fighting vehicles up a ramp to railroad cars waiting to ship them out.
Desert-tan battle tanks sit on another track, ready to be deployed.
The tanks, Bradleys and a mountain of other materiel are bound for California's Mojave Desert, where about 3,500 active-duty soldiers with the fort's Third Brigade, 1st Armored Division will hold annual live-fire exercises later this month. Fort Riley officials won't say whether the post could soon deploy units to the Middle East. But if it did receive deployment orders, the fort could move troops and equipment in one-fourth the time it took in the 1991 Gulf War, officials say, thanks to a rail system that in the last 10 years has seen millions of dollars' worth of improvements.
For 150 years, Fort Riley has been a staging point for soldiers and their supplies going to war. The fort's first railhead was established in 1866.
What is different about any upcoming conflict with Iraq is that the Army can get its units up and out faster than ever before.
Among the improvements at Fort Riley this decade:
During the last war, the railhead could load 100 cars a day; now it can load 400.
In the Gulf War, it took a crew at least four hours to load a tank and properly secure it with cables and lumber. Now, with reinforced cars, it takes only 30 minutes.
In the buildup to the Gulf War, the Kansas railhead could load supplies 12 hours a day. Stadium-style overhead lights and ground illumination installed since then now make it a round-the-clock operation.
Loading can occur simultaneously on 13 tracks.
The fort has access to more reinforced rail cars, allowing crews to set two 72-ton Abrams tanks on each car. An older wooden-deck car could hold only one tank.
Before, the massive vehicles had to maneuver up earthen ramps. Now, the vehicles drive up ramps with reinforced concrete. The ramps are wider, spanning two tracks.
The fort serves as a transportation hub for National Guard and reserve troops and equipment from Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and the Dakotas, in addition to its three active-duty brigades: Third Brigade, First Armored Division; First Brigade, First Infantry Division; and 937th Engineer Group.
Since 1991, the Army has invested roughly $25 million in Fort Riley's railhead to speed up deployment, said Dick Wollenberg, Fort Riley's transportation officer, who oversees the railhead and other deployment activities.
"Everything is designed so we can do things faster than before," Wollenberg said.
The Army has improved other railheads, but Wollenberg said that Fort Riley's rail facility is among the most efficient in the military.
During the recent loading, one soldier guided a 25-ton Bradley fighting vehicle onto a flatbed rail car.
Nearby, a helmeted soldier worked calmly and deliberately in the cold to fasten thick chains to steel rings on the back of a M109 Paladin howitzer.
On another track, a 5-ton troop and supply truck rolled up a ramp.
Down the way, Humvees collected on bi-level rail cars.
The fort can do its part to get troops to a war zone faster, better equipped and at a lower cost, Wollenberg said.
In less than four days, it can move an entire armored brigade to a port and have it ready to go overseas, he said.
Because of its efficiency, Wollenberg said, the Fort Riley railhead has become a model for the military. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki is among the generals who have visited to see how it works.
GlobalSecurity.org, a defense consulting and analysis organization, rates Fort Riley's railhead as the largest and most capable in the U.S. Army.
Computerization is one key to Fort Riley's increased efficiency. It uses a computer model to plan each movement at the railhead, but staff members refine the plan up to 50 times, Wollenberg said. The goal is to use every available foot of transport space.
Computers also help the Army keep better track of where equipment goes. Every vehicle and shipping container gets an electronic tag that registers on monitors.
It wasn't that way in the Gulf War. At the end of that war, Wollenberg recalls, his commander directed him to determine the contents of a mountain of Army shipping containers piling up at a port in Saudi Arabia. The steel containers sat five high, five wide for half a mile. Sorting it out was virtually impossible.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fort Riley has operated under heightened security that starts at its gates. At the railhead, guards watch the vehicles being loaded for transport.
"The days of thinking that you're in the rear area, you're safe, are over," said Maj. Todd Livick, public affairs officer for the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and Fort Riley.
The railroad company provides security while the shipments are in transit.
The railhead is only one component of the fort's deployment system. It benefits from being close to I-70 and other highways. Buses can shuttle soldiers to airports in nearby Manhattan and in Topeka. Commercial trucks can haul soldiers' personal equipment.
Over the past few years, the post's railhead has become a busier place with the deployment of international peace-keeping missions.
But rising tensions between the United States and Iraq and talk of a new war have not changed the railhead's pace, Wollenberg said. "We go as fast as we can, as hard as we can, as long as we need to."
Copyright © 2003, The Wichita Eagle
